NEWTOWN, Conn. -- At St. Rose of Lima Church, a steady trickle of people arrived to pray and light a candle in memory of those who died.

Marsha Moskowitz, a bus driver for the Sandy Hook elementary school, was immediately met by a familiar face who gave her a tight hug.

"I'm Jewish and I'm coming here," she said, her voice choking.

Moskowitz said that at least two of the victims were children she drove. She said she contacted their parents as word spread. One of them, a girl, was her last stop. "I used to sneak her a lollipop," she said.

A bus driver since 1999, she knows many of the families and children in this small suburban town, where many of its members share common ties.

For years, she was the bus driver who picked up and dropped off Adam Lanza, the alleged gunman.

"He was very quiet and shy and reserved," she said. "He didn't have friends."

She then added: "That kind of stuck out."

Like many others, she came to the church on Saturday because she didn't want to be alone. As friends ran into one another, they whispered worried exchanges about those families they knew with children at the school.

Some noted the strangeness of walking through a once quiet town that was now mobbed by hordes of reporters and camera crews from all over the world.